


Make the Devil Bend

by AustralianSpy



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, BBC Sherlock - Freeform, M/M, Post-The Reichenbach Fall
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-20
Updated: 2013-09-30
Packaged: 2017-12-24 02:28:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/934120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AustralianSpy/pseuds/AustralianSpy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ever since The Fall, Jim Moriarty has been paying John Watson unwelcome visits.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Make the Devil Bend (496 Days Since)

One year, four months, three weeks, and two days. That’s how long it has been since The Fall. Since the blood of Sherlock Holmes colored the front stoop of Saint Bart’s hospital crimson. Jim Moriarty wonders idly if John Watson knows that exact count, as well, as he observes the blond man hobbling down the street. He most likely does, in his way. Though Jim imagines he instead measures the time by the Friday evenings he spends at the late Sherlock Holmes’ gravesite. Habitually he would venture there, every week. Predictable creature.

He wonders if John has noticed his presence, yet. He most likely has, though he refuses to acknowledge Jim. He knows very well that John has learned the signs of Jim’s approach, at this point; has figured out his methods and habits. Not that Jim doesn't mix it up often. But there is only so many ways one can add variety.

Jim falls into step silently at John’s shoulder, strolling casually at his side. John doesn’t flinch. His pace doesn’t so much as falter at the addition of this new companion. No, he doesn’t pay Jim even a sideways glance. What a change this is, from the first few weeks the consulting criminal had paid him a visit. Those times had been sporadically violent. Jim had ended up with a broken nose. He’d been threatened with a hand gun. Beaten with a cane.

Ah, the cane. What a tedious thing. Even now, John limps his way along the sidewalk with it in his silence. He would discard it soon enough. Jim could get him worked enough – get him just angry enough – that his limp would be forgotten for a few moments. The cane would end up on the floor during John’s fits of rage and ragged emotion.

Jim whistles to himself as they walk, drawing near to 221 Baker Street. It's a slow, waltzing tune, and it carries around them like a haunting satellite. Jim notes the slightest tensing of John’s shoulders at the sound, but there is no further protest than that.

John doesn’t bother slamming the door in Jim’s face. He’s learned that the locks are far too inadequate to keep the man out. If Jim wants to be there, he would be and that is that.

The trek up the stairs. John trudging into 221B; tossing his coat aside and sighing loudly through his nose before veering off into the kitchen. Jim smiles to himself. So well-trained. John would make tea, as is expected of him. Usually. There are occasions where his grudging complacency runs thin, and he would refuse to be Jim’s butler. This is obviously not one of those moments.

Jim makes his rounds while he waits, inspecting this and that to see if anything at all has changed in the flat. Still not a word has been exchanged between the two. Not until the kettle whistles, and after a minute or two John emerges with tea on a tray. Jim purrs his thank you as he pours himself a cup.

John retreatsd back into the kitchen, however, and returns with something stronger. Scotch. Clearly John is in a bit more of a mood than usual, this round.

“So how have you been, Johnny boy? I’ve missed you so much,” Jim sings out, voice silky and dripping with taunts. He settls into what had once been Sherlock’s armchair, eyeing the still-standing John with casual amusement.

No response. Only the downing of the contents of his glass.

“Oh, goodness. I’m getting the silent treatment this time, aren’t I? Haven’t we been through this before? I like the sound of my own voice far too much for this to bother me. I’ll just prattle on and on… Talking until you give something in return. That’s how this thing works, you know. Exchange. Tit for tat.”

There’s a nearly imperceptible twitch in John’s jaw as the clenched muscles work, breathing out a few words in quiet malice. His icy gaze refuses to meet Jim’s.

“What’s that, John?” Jim leans forward, comically cupping his ear with a hand and raising his eyebrows in an exaggeratedly quizzical look. “Didn’t quite catch it.”

John’s fingers tighten around his glass, gripping it harder than necessary. “I said. Tit for tat would require me to shoot you between the eyes.” The man’s eyes finally move to meet Jim’s, burning with a dark fire. “I owe you that much.”

Jim looks more than undaunted by the sudden malice written all over John’s face. If anything, it only appears to inspire a certain amount of glee in him. He sets his cup of tea aside – and while still leaned forward – he rests his elbows on his knees and threads his fingers together. “Do you? Owe me that much? Because if you do, you’re not exactly prompt when it comes to paying your debts. More than a year you’ve been avoiding offing me. Can’t imagine why – unless you’re desperately trying to keep your poor, deceased flatmate alive through me.” Oh, that thought delights him, grinning widely. “Is that it? I’m the only one who knows with absolute certainty that he wasn’t a fraud? You can’t be alone in knowing that he was ever really himself? So you let me yank you around on a chain? It's like I always say, John.  _Symbiotic._ ”

As each word drops from his lips, Jim can see the outrage and animosity rising in John, though he pretends otherwise. It is his intent, of course; to wind him up. It always is. “That’s a bit sad, don’t you think? A bit masochistic of you? That you suffer my presence all the time for him? Ha. Ridiculous, honestly. You must be just miserable.” Jim hardly gets those last words out before John’s glass hits the ground.

He doesn’t drop the beverage. No, not at all. It's more of thrown violently to the ground, glass shattering everywhere and its amber contents staining the carpeting.

And then it’s all a blur.

Jim is yanked roughly from his seat, though he makes no attempts to prevent as much. Hands grab and pull at shirt-collars and buttons. Hair is fisted, eliciting a hiss of pain. Lips crash together, teeth dominating the embrace. The tear of fabric in the impatient haste to ineptly undo buttons. Somewhere along the way, just as Jim had predicted, the cane is long abandoned and forgotten.

Too much heated anger and aggression for them to make it to another room. Nails drag down bare skin once it’s exposed. John’s weight is heavy atop the consulting criminal. Why did Jim allow this? He couldn’t remember. Too much going on to think. Did he want it as much as John seemed to? All signs pointed to yes. Every shared bite, harsh dig of fingertips into hipbones, cursed word and pained noise and yank of hair and attempt to hurt the other in such an intimate entanglement.

“I like the new you,” Jim breathes out, the words nearly lost in a tangle of less intelligible syllables. “This thing I bring out in you.” John hates the sound of Jim’s voice when it manages to form coherent words. Especially at a moment like this.

By the end, they are both battered and bruised. Dark splotches on their collarbones and ugly red lines criss-crossing their backs and arms. The only sound that fills the stagnant silence of 221B is their labored breathing as it slowly returns to a softer rhythm.

Jim has long ago deduced the reasoning behind John’s actions. Why he’s instigated this sort of encounter to punctuate Jim’s visits. Initially, it had been an attempt to silence his unwelcome visitor and his incessant nattering. John’s lips forcing Jim’s into silence. And then it had evolved into a full-on effort to injure one another whilst in the throes of something pleasurable. It is the best way, for them. Neither particularly wants the other man dead, despite what they might suggest. Jim also suspects that John enjoys possessing the ability to control him in those short moments, and make the Devil bend; when every other second is spent being controlled and tormented by him. This is a sort of repayment. Though perhaps a poor one.

Jim gathers his clothes from the floor. They’re a rumpled disaster, and he makes a reproachful sound as if to reprimand the garments for being in such a state. John sighs loudly through his nose, standing in one ungraceful motion to redress himself.

Jim smirks a little, even while he's irritated by how disheveled he is going to look while going home. They’ve reached the point where John regrets what they've just done. The man retrieves his discarded cane from the floor, as if the burden of his regret also reinstated the burden of his limp.

“Still not going to put that thing away? We both know you don’t really need it. Bit ridiculous that you insist on using it, still.”

John answers only with silence as he leaves the room. Jim knows very well that the doctor won’t return until until he is absolutely certain that the criminal consultant is gone. He considers sticking around longer, if only because he can. But it's  _so_  distasteful to sit around in disastrously wrinkled clothes. He gathers himself, certain he’s not forgotten anything before he saunters his way towards the stairwell.

How unhealthy is it to fraternize with the enemy? Very, most likely. Jim whistles as he descends the stairs, a rendition of the same tune that’d passed his lips earlier. The sound wafts through the floorboards, reaching John’s ears despite the distance. The last notes die out as the front door closes behind Jim.

It is not the first visit the Devil has payed John Watson, and it won’t be the last.


	2. Symbiosis (81 Days Since)

John Watson isn’t sure why he doesn’t turn around as soon as he sees the figure in the distance. They’re rested atop a headstone — John’s destination — as if they’ve been waiting all this time for him. Odds are, they have been; if they were who John suspects, at least. His feet keep moving despite his better judgment, until he comes to rest a few paces from the headstone. His suspicions as to the figure’s identity are more than confirmed as he stands stock-still, eyeing them.

“Moriarty.”

A slow little grin spreads across the criminal’s face, the edges of it twisted in faint malevolence. “Doctor Watson,” he exclaims with more enthusiasm than is strictly necessary. “Fancy meeting _you_ here.”

“There’s nothing to fancy,” comes the gruff reply.

Jim Moriarty looks amused by the assertion. The man sits perched impertinently atop the headstone of the late Sherlock Holmes, and the smug lines of his face suggest he knows exactly how offensive he’s being.  “Clever you,” the criminal purrs. “You’re quite right. You visit here the same day and time every week. Tediously habitual.”

“And I'm sure that just _bothers_ you, huh?” John’s face remains an impassive mask, refusing to relinquish even the slightest hint of emotion. That would make Moriarty too pleased. “Tedium? Drives you mad.”

Moriarty’s lips press and twist together, eyes narrowing as well to form a look of indecisive thought. “Mm. Well. In a way. That’s why I’m here, though, naturally. To break your silly monotony. You’re grateful for that, of course.” His smirk does nothing to quell John’s rising anger. But John knows better than to give the man what he wants; to let him provoke him into argument.

“Of course.”

If the answer disappoints the criminal, he doesn’t show it. He instead tips his head back some, looking up at the sky. “Lovely day for visiting dead men, isn’t it, Johnny boy?” Moriarty pauses to see if John will retort. When he doesn’t, the man continues on. “He isn’t very good company though, is he? So dull. So dreary. Horrible conversationalist, too.”

“So are you,” John remarks tightly.

Moriarty rolls his eyes dramatically. “Yes, yes. You’re one to talk. I have to wind you up quite a good deal before you’ll go.”

John squares his shoulders, using the motion to stall for a few seconds before he answers. “I have to wonder why you even bother,” he finally says, voice carefully even and controlled. “I’m no genius, after all. No...” He’d intended to say ‘no Sherlock Holmes’, but he can’t bring himself to finish the statement. It doesn’t matter, though, because Moriarty does it for him.

“No Sherlock Holmes? Certainly not. But I can experience him vicariously through you, can’t I? And you can do the same through me. Symbiosis.”

“We aren’t ‘symbiotic’. Now matter how many times you try and convince me of it.”

“So you say,” Moriarty replies in drawn out syllables, without appearing to be even slightly convinced of the notion.

What is it, four minutes into this exchange? — and already John’s had enough of it. Enough of Jim Moriarty and his need to provoke him; to make him dance for his own amusement because he’d gotten his favorite playmate killed. Well, John isn’t a plaything. He’s _no one’s_ toy. Why couldn’t the madman get that into his thick skull?

All the while that John is contemplating how little tolerance he now has for the criminal mastermind, the man’s still talking. He comes in halfway, having tuned out the former half of Moriarty’s natterings. “... too bad, really,” he’s saying. “That I’m stuck with you, now. A silly little dog that comes trailing back to his dead master’s feet every Friday evening like clockwork. That trudges around doing the same things every day like a cog in the machine, and dear God you’re about the best I’ve got at the moment.” Moriarty pulls a disgusted face at the thought, which vanishes just as quickly as it comes. He wraps the top of the headstone with his knuckles. “This fellow here? I suppose he wasn’t really all that great, either. Couldn’t quite keep up with me, or play the game as well. Ended up toppling riiiiiiight over the edge...” Moriarty makes a downward motion with his hand, mimicking the path of a falling man.

John’s hands clench and unclench at his sides: one balling into a fist and the other gripping his cane so tightly that his knuckles turn white. They were very small signs of his agitation, but Moriarty doesn’t miss them, even if he doesn’t directly comment on them. “Are we done here, yet? Or are you looking for me to bury you with him?”

There’s that arrogant little smile again, Moriarty swaying just slightly from side to side on his perch. “Have we reached that point already, dear pet? Where you make threats you won’t follow through on? You’re all bark, little doggie. Where’s your bite? Show your teeth.”

Neither man even has the time to take a single breath before John is swinging out with a balled fist, striking the criminal full in the face with it. The force of the impact sends the man toppling over backwards off of the gravestone to somersault and sprawl onto the ground. John must’ve caught him by surprise, because Moriarty initially yowls in pain. John stands on his side of the headstone, cradling the knuckles of the hand he’d swung with. His cane lays discarded in the grass off to the side.

Moriarty doesn’t rise to his feet for a beat or two. He stays on the ground until the laughter starts bubbling forward. John can’t see the man’s face, but the mocking sound only serves to make him angrier. Finally, the criminal untangles himself from himself, and hauls to his feet. Moriarty dusts off his suit, then presses his hand gently against his face to cover his nose that had started dripping blood.

“Ha! _There’s_ your bite,” Moriarty all but cackles, though the sound is muffled by his hand. “I’ve found it.”

John’s scowl couldn’t be more pronounced. “Sod off, you bastard.” He turns on a heel to storm away, grabbing his cane from the ground as he goes to hobble off with it. Moriarty’s laughter follows him as he goes.

But that isn’t all that follows him. He’s only home for minutes before the lock clicks and the door’s suddenly open; before Moriarty’s strolling in, still wiping at his nose. As soon as John spots him, he moves to slam the door on the criminal — physically _on_ him, if he can manage to crush the man between the door and the frame. But he isn’t quick enough, and Moiarty’s already in and nudging the door closed with a backward motion of a heel.

“Rushing to greet me? How _thoughtful_ of you,” the man intones, every syllable laced with his special brand of arrogance. John contemplates using his cane to whack the man in the back of the legs, but thinks better of it. As satisfying as it would be, the criminal wouldn’t leave. Taking a beating didn’t seem to bother him in the least.

“I was hoping to see you back out again,” John says sharply, stalking back away from the door, to hide in the kitchen. He’s simultaneously worried and surprised to find that Moriarty hasn’t followed him, but he isn’t kept wondering about his whereabouts for long. After a moment, the criminal comes sauntering in, having apparently visited the toilet to get a towel to wipe the remnants of blood from his face.

“This place has hardly changed,” Moriarty is saying. “Not since _he_ was here, and not even since he —.” The man pauses, making a ‘splat’ sound instead of actually articulating what he meant: since Sherlock Holmes had fallen. “Can’t bring yourself to move a thing out of place after dear Missus Hudson made her rounds, can you?”

John ignores the man with his eyebrow raised in question, brushing roughly past him and back into the sitting room.

“It’s like this entire flat is practically a shrine in his memory.”

There’s more silence on John’s part, busying himself doing nothing at all: fidgeting with a knick-knack, swiping dust off of a shelf, nudging a book over an inch and back again. Doing anything to avoid answering the criminal, or even looking at him. He can feel Moriarty practically exuding smugness somewhere behind him; the man’s dark eyes following his idle progress around the room.

“I wonder what he would say, if he could see you, now.”

John’s shoulders tense, his motions becoming more stiff and agitated. He could hear the sound of fabric rustling against cushion; the criminal had settled onto the couch. “He’d tell you to get the bloody hell out of our flat,” John snaps, though he still refuses to turn and face him.

“Would he?” Moriarty’s voice is languidly contemplative. “I think he’d be a bit pleased to see me. More than you ever are. So inhospitable. Work on that.”

“It isn’t my job to please you, Moriarty,” comes John’s annoyed reply.

“It is now, Johnny boy. I’ve made it your job. Haven’t you figured that out, yet? I’m not going anywhere, so you might as well make the best of it; make it more enjoyable for the both of us. Fighting and being obstinate will only make it worse.” The patronizing tones of Moriarty’s voice only aggravate John further.

“I’m not some thing for you to toy with,” he responds, voice quiet. He trails a finger gently along the curves of the skull on the mantle, a very fine layer of dust dragging off the item and sticking to the pad of his finger. He rubs it off with his thumb, before finally turning around to face Moriarty. He was lounging on the couch, as John had suspected he would be.

“Oh, but I think you are,” Moriarty drawls, mouth curved in a wicked smirk. Each word seems to draw John closer, feet moving unbidden. “You’re nothing without someone... _else_ in your life, John Watson. Someone clever. Someone to give you purpose and excitement. What have you got now, hm? An empty flat and a body buried under six feet of dirt — oh, and _me_. Which is precisely why I’m not dead yet. _Symbiotic_ , Johnny.”

John’s reached the sofa a few beats before Moriarty finishes speaking; a few beats before John reaches the end of his rope, and he can’t listen to the criminal speak another syllable. As soon as that little pet moniker of his name — _Johnny_ — passes the man’s lips, John grabs Moriarty by the tie, yanking him up to crush his own lips against his. He’s not sure what came over him, and he knows he’ll regret the decision immediately. But he just needs silence, and this — _this_ — was the only way to keep the criminal mastermind’s mouth busy doing more than taunting him.

John pulls away, finally, straightening up. Moriarty has a queasy, hateful little smile on his face, and he drags his tongue across his upper lip. He looks as if he’s anticipated this all along, and might have actually thoroughly enjoyed it. John sets his jaw, disgusted with himself.

“Get out.”

“No.”

For all the brevity of the exchange, it says so much more. John is helpless, and they’re both acutely aware of the fact. Moriarty won’t leave until he chooses to, and not a second before. And no amount of begging on John’s part will change that. His hands clench at his sides — _both_ hands — and it occurs to him that he’s dropped his cane yet again. It lay at his feet, discarded most likely during his moment of indiscretion. Moriarty is watching him very closely, as if waiting to see if he would bend down and collect it.

“Quit staring at me,” John snaps, but the criminal’s response is nothing more than a self-satisfied smirk. As if he knows that he’s backed John into a corner. Moriarty had remarked on occasion when he’d show up to pester John that the cane is utterly useless. That John doesn’t actually need it. It’s a crutch for John’s mind, and not any physical malady. Picking the cane back up is admitting — at least to Moriarty, which John recognizes — that he’s mentally injured; but leaving it where it lies is admitting that the criminal is right, and that he doesn’t need it at all.

John hates this. The little mind games Moriarty has to thread into every encounter. As if his mere presence isn’t torture enough. So what is the lesser of two evils? Conceding weakness, or telling Moriarty he’s right? How did the man managed to maneuver him into such a weighty decision through a task so simple? John grits his teeth then stoops down, grabbing the cane with deliberation. When he straightens up, he refuses to meet Moriarty’s gaze, even if he can feel those dark, insidious eyes gauging his every motion.

Cane now in hand, he puts his weight on it, looking off to the side — looking anywhere but at the man on his couch. Suddenly, Moriarty rises to his feet in one fluid, unhurried motion. The action finally attracts John’s eye. The criminal has a satisfied look on his face, as if he’s had something answered for him, today. Like he’s gotten what he came for.

“Thank you so much for your hospitality, John,” Moriarty lilts, straightening his suit jacket. “Always appreciated. Truly.”

John just doesn’t know exactly what the day’s encounter has told Moriarty. But by the triumphant air with which the man walks out the door — smug smile curving his lips — he can tell the criminal gleaned _something_.

John stands uneasily where Moriarty leaves him: just in front of the couch. It was the kiss and the cane. Those two must be it. John’s skin crawls at the thought of what the criminal mastermind might prepare for him, next, based off of whatever information he’d learned.


End file.
